How People Got in Their Boxes
by HecateA
Summary: In which Remus can no longer avoid telling Tonks just how much he dislikes Aurors. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings: **Works off of canon power dynamics that allude to police brutality and institutional violence.

* * *

**Stacked with: **MC4A; Shipping War; Animal Verses; Ornate Oscillating Obelisks; Remains of War

**Individual Challenge(s): **Cuppa; Gryffindor MC; Hufflepuff MC; Fall Leaves; Seeds; Shipmas; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Themes and Things A (Injustice); Themes and Things B (Corruption); True Colours; Rian-Russo Inversion; In a Flash

**Representation(s): **Remus Lupin; first fight

**Bonus challenge(s):** Creature Feature; Second Verse (Odd Feathers); Chorus (Middle Name)

**Tertiary bonus challenge: **Olivine

**Word Count: **973

* * *

_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Nymphadora Tonks/Remus Lupin (Technicolour Moon)

**List (Prompt): **Summer Micro 1 (Boxes)

* * *

Author's Note: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

Warnings: Works off of canon power dynamics that allude to police brutality and institutional violence.

* * *

Stacked with: MC4A; Shipping War; Animal Verses; Ornate Oscillating Obelisks; Remains of War

Individual Challenge(s): Cuppa; Gryffindor MC; Hufflepuff MC; Fall Leaves; Seeds; Shipmas; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Themes and Things A (Injustice); Themes and Things B (Corruption); True Colours; Rian-Russo Inversion; In a Flash

Representation(s): Remus Lupin; first fight

Bonus challenge(s): Creature Feature; Second Verse (Odd Feathers); Chorus (Middle Name)

Tertiary bonus challenge: Olivine

Word Count: 973

* * *

Shipping Wars

Ship (Team): Nymphadora Tonks/Remus Lupin (Technicolour Moon)

List (Prompt): Summer Micro 1 (Boxes)

* * *

How People Got in their Boxes

"I don't understand why you won't come," Dora repeated, not for the first time. As the discussion went on, they opened and shut cabinets around the kitchen of Grimmauld Place with a little more force than strictly necessary as they tidied up after dinner.

Remus didn't answer. He had nothing good to say on this topic, but Dora was insistent.

"The Fall Equinox Banquet is the best night of the year," she pushed. "It's one of the only nights where most of the department's off, for starters—there's music, good wine, good food, everybody gets to dress up, the dancing is good…"

"It's not my place to go," Remus said.

"You'd be my guest!" Dora said. "I've never had a guest before…"

"I still don't think that's enough."

"Come on," Dora sighed. "This is such a special occasion. The entire Department of Law Enforcement gets the night off and everyone's there…"

"Take a second to think about how that might actually be the problem," Remus finally snapped, spinning around.

She looked at him, shocked, and arched an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

He sighed and put down the towel he'd been toying with and wrung his hands together for a moment before finding the right words.

"Look," he said. "I respect you..."

"Off to a great start," she said.

"I respect what you do," Remus pushed on. "But I don't…"

There was no nice or easy way to say this.

He decided to just spit out the words.

"I don't like Aurors," he finally said.

Dora looked at him for a second, mouth open. She blinked twice and shifted her weight onto her back leg.

"You're going to have to explain that bit to me," she said. "You don't like Aurors? You do know what I do, right? What my career is? What I spent my whole life working towards? What all my achievements are linked to? What I'm good at?"

"Yes, and like I said, I respect you but…" Remus sighed.

"How can you respect me and then go on to say something like that?" Dora snapped. "How can you go around, putting people in boxes like…"

"Dora, there was a time around ten years ago where Aurors were randomly sent to werewolves' houses the day after the full moon, when we were exhausted and trying to rest, to burst in and check on whether or not we'd committed some crime the night before. Fenrir Greyback had to bite off someone's hand and ship it to the Ministry for that to stop—and The Prophet had an absolute field day, with that one. They still conduct random house inspections."

"Not on everyone," Dora said.

"Maybe," Remus sighed. "But how do you think they decide which werewolves are good and which werewolves are bad, Dora? They don't have a triage process. I'm branded as a high-risk target because Greyback bit me. That doesn't have anything to do with anything, but because the Ministry believes it does, I get random check-ins."

She didn't reply.

"James, Sirius, and Lily—and even Peter, God help me—used to take great pains to make sure that none of my Order assignments would bring me into contact with Aurors; Dumbledore does the same now. Sometimes there's an Auror at the Department for the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures, just lurking—and if they know you're a werewolf, they stop you and shake you down and just interrogate you in the middle of the Ministry to find out what your business is. If you have to meet with someone there for anything at all, they'll usually request that an Auror come sit into the meeting 'for their safety.'"

Dora frowned. "I've never heard of that happening…"

"Well, it does," Remus said. "When the Ministry started building up the Werewolf Registry, they sent Aurors to track down known werewolves and collect our information. They were invasive and rude and belittling. When they were first looking for Sirius last year, Aurors interrogated me a dozen times for any information I could give them, and none of them looked me in the eye or shook my hand during that entire process. When Umbridge passed her legislature, Aurors were the ones removing werewolves from their positions and letting our employers know who we are. They check the papers we have to carry now."

Dora paled, somewhat. Her eyebrows knitted together.

"And that's not all Aurors," Remus said. "It's not you—it's not you at all. It's not Hestia, it's not Kingsley, and it's not Mad-Eye either. But it's enough Aurors that when I see them in Diagon Alley, I leave and come back to run errands another day. And maybe that's not fair, Dora, and I'm sorry if it doesn't feel fair. But in this case, if you're going to be upset that I'm generalizing Aurors on this one, think about how the people got in those boxes in the first place."

For a while, that hung in the air between them.

"That's more unfair," Dora said finally, her voice small.

Remus swallowed hard.

"It feels that way," Remus said. He took a deep breath and crossed the kitchen to take her hands. Fighting left a sour taste in his mouth, and those words had burned on their way out. But they had to be said. He shouldn't have let them go months unsaid. He knew that, as his heartbeat slowed down and he calmed.

"I love you, and there's very few things I wouldn't do for you. But please don't ask me to walk into a room full of Aurors."

Dora nodded.

"I won't. It doesn't—I'm sorry I didn't know," she said. "I should have."

"It's okay," Remus muttered.

"It's not," she said. "I… you should tell me this stuff. So that I can learn and be better."

Remus chewed his lip. "I didn't know how you'd take it."

"Not well, as you just saw," she sighed. "But it's… that doesn't matter. That's besides the point. Is there anything else I should know?"

He sighed.

"There's a lot," Remus said.

"I'll listen, if you'll talk," Dora said.

And so they put the kettle on, watched the water boil in silence, and then sat down.


End file.
